Heart & Friends – Home for the Holidays

Heart is adding to the Christmas releases coming this year – let’s see how they do…

So Heart has entered the Christmas game. Interesting. We all know Heart, we all know they can sing. When I first saw the song list I was more than a little intrigued – All Through the Night co-existing with Stairway to Heaven? Barracuda along-side The River? It does confuse me a little, but I have plenty of confusing Christmas albums I love. Is this one of them? Well, to be fair, I haven’t heard it all yet, only a preview. I think it’s safe to say there are parts that seem to work for me and parts that don’t. All Through the Night is certainly a highlight, as is Rocking. And Ring Them Bells promises to rouse any audience to their feet. There are some great vocals here, but I found what I heard a little disjointed. I’m not sure where I’m supposed to play this. If I’m relaxing to Love Came Down at Christmas, I don’t want to be rocking to Barracuda. I’m having trouble at this point convincing myself this is an album I need to own, but there are a few singles I’ll certainly be buying, if they’re available separately (which, currently, it doesn’t seem like they are). We’ll see. Who knows, I might end up picking up the DVD, maybe it’ll fit together more when I see it in context. The potential is certainly there. Perhaps you should head over to the previews and see what you think while I wait for this to become available. I think it really needs to be seen as a whole before any final verdicts are rendered. It has me intrigued though…

From the press release:
Heart’s latest release, a special live performance CD/DVD, Blu-ray and digital download, “Heart & Friends – Home for the Holidays” which includes holiday classics, personal favorites, and some of their own hits and also features special guests Shawn Colvin, Sammy Hagar, Richard Marx and Pat Monahan from Train. This unique concert was taped on December 12th, 2013 at the Benaroya Symphony Concert Hall in Ann and Nancy Wilson’s hometown of Seattle.

“We had a great time putting on this show with special friends for the holidays. Warm moments and great music from all….and some saucy little elves too,” said Ann Wilson. “We have always held the holidays up as a wonderful whimsical time of year and celebrating it in our beloved home town with friends, songs and family was extremely magical,” added Nancy Wilson.

“Heart & Friends: Home For The Holidays” ended a prolific and award-winning year in 2013 for HEART, who have been enjoying a resurgence of popularity since 2010′s “Red Velvet Car”, which became the group’s first Top 10 album in 20 years. Many successful live shows and tours (including a 2011 tour with Def Leppard, and their 2013 “Heartbreaker” tour) have occurred with 2012 seeing the release of “Strange Euphoria”, a definitive career-spanning box set; the arrival of “Kicking and Dreaming: A Story of Heart, Soul, and Rock and Roll”, a best-selling autobiography; the announcement of Ann and Nancy Wilson’s HEART star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and the release of Fanatic, HEART’s 14th studio album. In addition to their star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame HEART was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame last April.

“Heart & Friends – Home for the Holidays” will be released in the U.S. November 10th, 2014 on Frontiers Music SRL.